Meter Maids Eat Their Young (17 page)

“That would be preferable; though as I am the senior mechanic here, it seems reasonable to assume they will know it was I who gave you information. On the other hand, firing me at this critical juncture would be counterproductive. And costly. The counterproductive I might expect from them. Costly, however, is not something they tolerate well. What is it you wish to ask of me?”

I found myself liking this guy. “Well,” I said. “For starters, what's happening with all the carts?”

He pulled out a pocket knife, flicked it open with his thumb and began cleaning his fingernails.

“Corn syrup would be my theory,” he said. “Of course, sugar would produce the same result. However, I would wager the culprit is corn syrup. Simpler to administer.”

“Pardon me?”

“It would appear the engines are seizing. Were it but one cart, I might think a loss of oil pressure, perhaps even a loss of the oil itself. But, as you can see there are quite a number of them disabled. And, from my understanding, there are a good deal more stalled in the streets. The odds that all of them would suffer a catastrophic failure of the internal lubrication system are, well, quite high I would imagine.”

“And you think it's corn syrup?”

“Introduced into the fuel tank. Yes, sir.”

“And that would do this?”

“It would indeed. Corn syrup mixes quite well with gasoline. The vibration, movement of the cart, the bouncing up and down, would help to mix it further. The engine would perform as usual for a time. In this case, long enough for most of them to get out of the yard and onto the streets. Once the fuel pump began to deliver this diluted mixture to the carburetor, however, disaster would be but seconds away.”

“Disaster,” I said. “Seconds away.”

“Indeed. Once the mixture is introduced into the cylinder, put under pressure and ignited, the cylinder walls will begin to scorch. The rapid motion of the pistons, actually, to be precise, the rings surrounding the pistons, sliding over this scorched surface will cause a tremendous amount of heat to build. Metal expands with heat. As the tolerances between the wall of the cylinder, the rings surrounding the pistons and the pistons themselves, already minuscule to begin with, becomes smaller, there comes an inevitable point where there is no tolerance left at all. Motion stops rather abruptly and the fluid mechanical properties of the internal combustion engine cease to exist.”

“The engine seizes,” I said.

“Just so.”

I scribbled in my notebook, feeling like I'd dropped into an evening class on advanced auto mechanics.

“So, you're saying that someone poured corn syrup into the gas tanks of these things?”

He smiled. “That is my current theory, yes.”

“How many carts are we talking here?”

“If this Mangler fellow is as thorough as he has shown himself to be in past encounters, I should think all of them.”

“All of them? Trashed?”

“An apt, if somewhat inaccurate, way of putting it. The word has gone out to the drivers to shut down their machines. However, these minions of management are an arrogant lot … perhaps more arrogant than management itself. It remains to be seen how many will heed the word. The more who do, the fewer the number of carts destroyed.”

“They would be salvageable, then?”

“Oh, they are all salvageable. Or most will be. The engines can be replaced. I have several spares in-house and more are readily obtainable. The engines are manufactured less than thirty miles from here, in fact. If the mixture has not yet been introduced to the carburetor, we could dismantle the system, dispose of the contaminated fuel, clean the tanks and lines, and install new filters. That would solve the problem.”

“And how long would this take?”

“If it were me alone, a month perhaps. Perhaps longer. Management won't suffer that, however. They will bring in outside help. Tyrants rarely tolerate being thwarted. I have little doubt that the majority of these carts will be back on the street as early as Wednesday.”

“That soon?”

“That soon, indeed.”

I called Felice as soon as I got back to my car. She filled me in on what Kayla and the others had learned. It turned out that most of the drivers had heeded the order to shut down their carts. Several had crashed. Several more had seized while their drivers were out writing tickets or on their way to writing them. Overall, though, most had shut down in time to save the engines.

I fed her the information Oliver had given me. I could hear her fingers clicking over the keyboard as I talked. The word was out, she told me. Radio and TV news were on to it but thus far, no one was sure what was going on. The Mangler was being held responsible. A safe enough assumption: It was his kind of thing. And I'd bet money there would be a message on my answering machine when I got home, taking responsibility for this current act.

As I turned up Gratiot Avenue, I noticed the carts that had been there earlier were gone. Towed back to the yard, no doubt. Despite the rain, the crowd on the steps of the admin building was larger. They had signs now, carrying them in one hand while balancing an umbrella in the other. The Mangler's supporters were a loyal and tolerant bunch.

As expected, there was a message on my answering machine when I got home. It turned out to have nothing to do with the day's events.

Tuesday saw a return to sunny skies and warm spring breezes. I was thankful for that, considering what the Mangler had planned for me later in the day. I went into the office early as I had several things I needed to do in preparation for the day's events. Several of the younger reporters congratulated me on the editorial, a fact which pleased me more than I would have expected.

Nothing had come of it yet, which bothered me somewhat. The DPE had turned down yet another request for an interview with Cooper. No big loss there. All I would have elicited from him was another load of PR bull and where would that get me? I was making more progress without their help.

Having skipped breakfast, I decided an early lunch was in order so I straightened up my desk and headed out the door. It was a beautiful day and I was feeling good.

I cut across N. Main and headed for the Coney Island restaurant. I was nearly to the other side when I spotted the Cushman cart bearing down on me. Lunging from its path, I tripped over the curb and fell heavily to my knees. Rolling over, I watched the cart continue on its way up the street, the driver completely unconcerned. I was ready to bolt down the street and turn the little cart over on its back like a turtle, driver and all, when someone spoke to me.

“You okay there, buddy?”

I turned, my face flushed with heat. A large man, his arms crossed over his chest, was leaning against a street light several feet away. The sun glinted off mirrored shades which hid his eyes. A curious, almost feral smile twisted his lips. A line from Kurt Vonnegut's
Breakfast of Champions
about mirrors being leaks into another universe sprang to mind.

“Fine,” I said, rising to my feet. “I'm just fine.”

“Gotta watch them little suckers,” he said, glancing up the street in the direction the meter maid had gone and then back at me. “I hear tell they're real vicious in this town.”

I brushed my jeans, probing for tears with my fingers, not taking my eyes off his face.

“Yeah,” I said. “Vicious.”

I took a tentative step, felt my leg wobble. So much for jogging down the street after the cart. The guy pushed himself away from the pole. Instinctively I took a step back, my knee protesting the sudden shift in weight.

“Ice,” he said.

“Pardon me?”

“Need ice on that knee. Ease the swelling.”

“Right,” I said. “Ice.”

He looked away from me, up the street. I followed his gaze. The meter maid who had nearly clipped me had stopped a block away, writing out a ticket. When I looked back at the guy, his arm was raised and his hand formed the shape of a pistol.

“
Pow
,” he said, his hand rocking back in mimicry of recoil. He looked over at me. “Makes ya wish ya could just pop the little suckers, don't it?”

I stood very still, saying nothing, watching him.

“You take care now,” he said, smiling. “And remember the ice.”

He turned away and started walking up the street. As he disappeared around a corner, a Buffalo Springfield song started playing in my head. There was definitely something happening here. I could feel that cross-hair itch in the middle of my back.

I looked around to see if anyone had witnessed the near miss or the strange little exchange, but what few people there were around appeared oblivious to it. I tried again to put weight on my leg. It shook a bit but held. After a couple of steps, the pain subsided and I continued on my way to the restaurant, glancing over my shoulder as I went.

I eased through the door of the Coney Island place and limped my way to my booth, back in the area where the waitresses hang out. I heard one of them call out my order before I was across the room. I sat down and pulled out my notebook.

Six three, I wrote. Two forty, maybe fifty. Not fat. I closed my eyes, seeing him again as he leaned against the pole. Forty-something. Late. A thin moustache and thinning hair the color of old pennies. I opened my eyes and stared out the window, expecting to see him staring back at me. The guy had really creeped me out. So much so, I jumped when the waitress set down my dogs and coffee.

“Jumpy, hon?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”

“Need to watch that caffeine. Switch to tea.”

“I'll do that. Thanks.”

I toyed with my dogs, rearranging the pieces of onion and doodling in the mustard and chili with the tines of my fork.  The appetite I'd started out with, gone. I slid the plate aside, glanced out the window again, then began flipping through my notebook, trying to set aside all that had just happened. I found the page where I'd written down the Mangler's last message verbatim.

“There is more to come. DPE must be stopped! Be at the corner of River Avenue and Market tomorrow, 12:30 sharp. Use your powers of observation well.”

I read further into my notes. There had been traffic sounds, a horn, the sound of a diesel truck winding up through the gears. My caller had been at a phone booth, probably near the freeway from the steady drone of cars in the background. And something else: Something about the voice. It was different but I couldn't say how. It was more a feeling than something I could back up with fact.

I reread the message. Cryptic as always. Few words. Even less real information. No mention of Harrison, but I hadn't expected there would be. The ‘more to come' part was obvious. This sucker, whoever he, or she, might be, wasn't going to stop trashing parking meters anytime soon. But what was he trying to accomplish?

I leaned back, rubbed my chin and noticed I needed a shave. Could HL be right? Was the Meter Mangler a product of my original article? Was there some sort of vendetta going on, some irate auto owner given one too many tickets? Car booted? Towed? There have certainly been times when I've considered taking out a few meters, trashing one of those little carts the meter maids drive around in. Like now. Namely, the one which had almost run me over. I looked out the window again. One of the little blue and white Cushman carts zoomed by. I wondered if it was the same one that had nearly clipped me.

I looked back at my notes. The last part of the message drew a blank. Stopped from what? Writing tickets? Sure, they were over-zealous to a fault, but writing parking tickets is what they did. It was the whole point of their existence. I had a feeling, though, that writing tickets was not Darth's main beef.

There was something going on and he was feeding it to me one small piece at a time. Did he have the whole picture himself or was he barely one step ahead of me? And what was going to happen at 12:30? The Mangler had never struck in daytime. Powers of observation, he said. What is it he wants me to see?